The Hitchhiker
by JTRaccoon715
Summary: This is a short story adapted around Roald Dahl's short story of the same name, credit to Storyus Raccoonus for finding where this was based off. A businessman pities on a person waiting beside a road with his thumb pointed upwards and gives him a lift, this is the story of what happens next.


**_The Hitchhiker_**

By Olirulz111

**(A/N): If anyone knows what the original story is called, please PM me and I'll include both the name and the person who finds it in the description.**

I was driving home from my job in the city; the usual 45 minute grind into the suburbs from the skyscrapers. As usual, the traffic problems were horrendous. Bumper to bumper along the high for as far as I could see. No matter, this was a rather annoyingly frequent thing I had to deal with. So, as usual, I turned on the radio and listened to something, I don't recall what it was, it must not have been important. I was doing okay for myself. The car was a BMW coupe, I was wearing a nice suit with a tailored jacket and everything was working out for me save for the traffic. But I don't know what made me do it. Was it his confused, lonely expression on his face as he peered across into the stationary cars asking him for a lift, holding out his extended thumb to the sky? Or was it the fact that he was too young, he was no older than 20 I'm sure of that. His blue shirt was torn along the centre across like someone had swung a knife at him and barely missed, as well as the dirtiness of it. I wasn't thinking rationally I can say that at least, I didn't think of the nice clean interior of my car and it's leather seats. I was thinking with my heart and not with my head.

I lowered the window as I sat in the outside lane and stuck my arm out and waved at him, this caught his attention and he jogged over riding on a wave of relief.

"Where do you have to go?" I asked.

"Anywhere but here." He responded without the worry I suspected he had earlier.

"Get in." I said. He leaped over the concrete barrier with ease and let himself in by reaching though the open window and opening it from the inside. He sat down and put on his seatbelt like we were about to crash, I don't know why, the traffic was only just beginning to creep forward.

"What's your name?" I asked politely, he didn't seem much like a talker at first.

"Rosco." He answered. "Rosco Pely."

"Can I call you Rosco?" I asked to be polite.

"Anything you want's fine with me." He answered like he didn't care; an identity wasn't something he craved.

"Where do you want to go?" I asked, more to comfort myself with a definite location. I didn't want this to turn out to be an all night affair.

"Where are you going?" He asked back.

"Home." I answered succinctly.

"Somewhere along the way will be fine." He replied kindly. There was a moment of silence where I finally began to move the car forward a few metres only to stop a few seconds later.

"So, what do you do?" I asked, this seemed to open up a can of worms.

"I steal things." He answered. At that point the reality hit me hard and it made me wonder if he's already gotten to my stuff.

"You're a pickpocket?" I asked. "Are you going to mug me?"

"No." He responded. "I'm not a mugger, thugs mug. Do I look like a thug?"

He didn't look like the type of person to turn to violence for some fun, he was also too skinny, too wiry to have any force behind a punch.

"Not really." I say nervously, now becoming conscious of anything of value around me that might be stolen.

"You're worried that I'm going to take something from you." He said, like he could read my mind. "I'm not stupid enough to turn on someone who helps me out. You see… there are people in this world who deserve to have something stolen from them and there are others who need not be touched. I've been in that city and I've seen everything happen during the night, especially on the weekends. What keeps me alive are these."

He showed me his hand and wriggled his fingers in a display on control. His hands were skinny like his body but they were so, measured and controlled. He had total mastery of them. The passenger even looked at them himself in marvel of his own physiology.

"Without my hands I'd be nothing." He said, now holding something in his hands. At first it looked like a snake from the corner of my eye. I turned to see what it was, and I distinctly remember the feeling of shock when I saw that the belt that I was wearing was now in his hands. This kid was really good at what he did.

"That's my belt!" I said in anger. How could he have betrayed me like this?

"Impressed?" He asked, thinking that I would show respect for him because he could remove my clothing without me knowing.

"No, I want my damn belt back!" I shouted back, to which he hung his head and gave it back to me without refusing. I took it and put it on my lap, the traffic was now at a crawl so I couldn't put it back on.

"Sorry." He apologised. "Do you want to know how I did it?"

"No, I can see why society hates your kind." I replied back. He was hurt by this comment, I could see him look at the door handle, he could have run away, indeed I almost expected him to do so. But much like he felt sorry when he undressed me, I felt sorry for being so hurtful to a kid who didn't do anything to hurt me; sure the removal of my belt was inconvenient, but I realized that I did more than retaliate too swiftly and brutally.

"I'm sorry…" I began to apologise but he interrupted me in between.

"Don't be." He replied with an unusual confidence that I didn't expect. "People are like that. They respond more strongly to the stick than the carrot. I've heard and endured worse than what you said, and since to me you are a stranger I wouldn't expect anything else. No one really understands anyone else, indeed, I can only prove that I exist and can you only prove that you exist. Ourselves, that is what truly exists, everything else will never be understood as well."

"You're a smart lad." I replied.

"Smart thieves don't get caught." He replied back. "That's why we are all smart, well, smarter than the people trying to catch us."

The car turned around a bend around the highway and I could see why there was more traffic than usual, there was an accident up ahead. We could both see the fire engines, ambulances and police vehicles in attendance.

"Must be a bad accident up ahead." I commented. He was silent.

"Can you drive in the emergency lane? We'll be here forever." He argued.

"You realize that's illegal." I replied.

"I'll cover for you, I'll get us out of a ticket if you do this for me." He responded, he was trying to suppress another emotion when he asked this from me. It looked like desperation so I agreed against my better judgment. I indicated out into the emergency lane that lead straight past the accident and into the clear highway ahead. I began to feel the freedom of going out of the gridlock and into this open space. I drove slowly, at about 60km/h so I could at least see the accident for myself. I caught a glimpse of the accident scene; there was a lot of foam on the road from the attempts to put out the fire. I was a two vehicle collision: a normal sedan which was rear ended badly with the whole back end crumpled in and a van, now badly burnt out and covered in foam. It was instantly clear which vehicle was the worse off. Police were marshaling people into a single lane, causing the massive bottleneck. Two ambulances were loading two victims into their respective vehicles. One was a rather large fellow, he had burns on his arm and some of his body and had an oxygen mask on him much like the second victim who was less badly burnt from the brief glance I got at him; but he wasn't moving either. There were no black body bags so I thanked myself that there wasn't a fatality for me to witness.

However, none of this was the most striking image that I remembered. What really stuck with me was how this criminal shielded his eyes with his hand from the crash. He didn't want to see it for some reason. I didn't even realize that I had passed the obstruction because I was so transfixed on the saddened expression on his face as he turned to look forward. He reached across to me and put one hand on the steering wheel to correct my alignment and to move me back into the normal lane. He rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath after doing this. It took a conscious effort from me to turn my head back to the road and concentrate on my driving. I thought I had made it away from the police with that daring stunt, but only a minute later, I could hear the sirens rapidly approaching us. Rosco was more controlled than he was just before, but he was still affected by something. I could see the police car speeding towards me in my rear view mirror. I put my indicator on and began to slow down in the emergency lane to allow the police car to stop behind me.

"Let me do the talking." He advised, like all of his emotional side had vanished and the colder and calculated side showed itself. I saw the two police officers get out of the car with one of them walking to my side and the other over to my passenger's side.

"You drove in the emergency lane sir, can I see your license please?" He asked. I showed him my license, which he briefly looked at before giving it back to me.

"I'm sorry about it." I replied, I was waiting for my passenger to do some talking but he was doing no such thing. He was looking at the other officer who was noting down the details of the incident on a notepad.

"You'll receive a letter within the next week in order to pay the fine. When you receive it, you'll have 14 days to appeal the decision or pay the fine, understand." He instructs. The other officer stops writing and puts his notepad inside his pocket before walking back with his partner to their car. I pull away and continue on my journey but I'm wondering what my passenger has just done to save me from a fine.

"How did you get me out of a ticket, you said nothing." I commented. He calmly shows me something in his hand, the notepad from the policeman.

"They won't know who to ticket." He replies. I made an uneasy smile at his theft, not knowing the repercussions or whether they would realize that it got stolen. I turned off the highway and was close to home when he decided that he wanted to be let out, so I did. He thanked me for the ride and then left without a trace. Still filled with wonder at such a complex character I continued on home.


End file.
